Ede is a pretty chilled guy. Laid back, thoughtful and funny. A musician and father by heart. When he realized his dream of becoming a popular artist with his band Miramode Orchestra wouldn’t happen, he decided to change his life. As a train driver he now spends more time with his family than chasing a dream.

*****I think I’m very moralistic, very fair towards other people, and honest. I can move people. I think I’ve managed to do that quite well in my life so far. I think that’s the most important thing somehow, i.e. positively influencing other people, moving them.

2. Und was magst du nicht an dir? / And what don’t you like about yourself?

*****That I find it very hard to let my hair down. As soon as a plan or something else isn’t working as it should, I feel totally unrelaxed. That can happen at a concert. But it also happens with women. That knocks me out of balance to such an extent that I can’t just lie back and relax. I’m pretty much a perfectionist on all levels. I generally find it important that things happen naturally, that nothing is artificial. As soon as there is any semblance of pretence, I’m incapable of anything. What I also don’t like so much about myself is that I want too many things and manage to do far too little. When I make promises to friends or family and don’t keep them. I make empty promises, basically. That happens quite often and that isn’t good.

*****It makes me sad when people aren’t sincere and act. And don’t actually notice they’re doing that any more, that they’re fooling themselves the whole time, and fooling me too of course. That thoughts about one’s career extremely inhibit humanity and sincerity. And when I notice I can’t be the kind of father I want to be. Or when I’m nasty to my kid or unfair, just because of stress. It also makes me sad that thoughts about one’s career are much more dominant in our lives than thoughts about one’s family, and thinking with the heart. Our head rules our heart much too much. That’s not good. I constantly think about these things, but always at the wrong moment. Train journeys are good for thinking.

*****You’ve caught me in a very interesting phase of my life. I think that about half a year ago I would’ve said something very different. I put music before everything else. I’m gradually noticing that there are other things that are more important. It makes me happy when I realise I am loved, and it makes me happy when I realise I am capable of loving. When I’m with my son and can see that he’s well. I think that’s the kind of happiness that we forget about very quickly in this day and age. Having kind people around you. That makes me happy.

*****Live from your heart. To understand that, I think you need to take a step back and slow down in your life. I’ve only just embarked upon that road. It’s incredibly difficult, because we’re geared towards having a career and making wise decisions in that area of our lives, instead of listening to our gut instincts. And decisions based upon my gut instincts were always the best in my life so far.

*****Of course there are many things that didn’t work out the way they were supposed to. That would have worked out better had I behaved more sensibly. But I think that everything we do in life has an effect on the future, and we learn from it. So I can’t say I regret anything. I regret nothing at all.

7. Was würdest du gern noch erleben? / What experiences would you still like to have?

*****Those are very blatant things like surfing, snowboarding more often, and I want to go paragliding. I really feel like trying that out. And I intend to make money. Because I earned no or very little money these last 10 years. I think money doesn’t make you happy, but not having any money makes you unhappy. You can’t buy friends, of course. Nor can you buy love. But we’re lucky to live in a luxurious world, and then it’s nice to be able to afford something in that case.

*****If something annoys me, I say so immediately. And I think that if you’re honest with yourself and with other people, you don’t need to be afraid of damaging or losing a relationship that is important to you. I’m afraid of losing touch with one’s child because of all the things one has to do in one’s professional life. That is really my only fear, and he’s the most important person I have a relationship with, my son. I’d like to be there for him all the time.

9. An welche schönen Erlebnisse erinnerst du dich gern? / What nice experiences do you like to reminisce about?

*****The birth of my son, on the one hand, and all the bliss I felt in the weeks preceding and following that. That was really a time when I thought, “Okay, I can die now. I’ve done everything in my life.” There were a few very emotional and good tours. So it’s especially the times when you can wind down and when you feel free. I like to look back on those times. Another really nice experience, which is the dream of any musician, was to bring out my first album. Anyone who’s ever produced an album knows how much work goes into that and how there’s so much in there, so much emotion, too.

*****When you think you might lose someone. There were one or two cases in my family where I was very afraid for the person, and those were hard times. And when you’re in the process of making your dream come true and then at some point realise that it’s not working out as you’d imagined it would. Understanding that in the first place was a very long process for me. Every musician would like to be famous. One shouldn’t lie about that. That really dragged me down for a very long time. And then I made the decision to do something else, which was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life. It was the decision to become a train driver.

11. Was war der schlimmste Moment in Deinem Leben? / What was the worst moment of your life?

*****The first thing that comes to mind is that my sister had an illness that was very serious, and she only barely managed to escape death. I got a call on a Monday morning at 5 a.m. that she was being operated on and nobody knew what would be the outcome of that. That was the worst moment of my life. That’s why the album I released was dedicated to her.